The Less I Parent, The Better Parent I Am?

The other night at book club during a conversation about parenting, I stated unequivocally, “The less I parent, the better I am at it.”

Then I cocked my head, narrowed my eyes, and thought, Wait, that didn’t come out right. With a bit of back paddling and explanation, the conversation flowed onward and around my little stump of a parenting speech, but here I am, five days later, trying to figure out how to say what I really meant in an eloquent fashion.

But, with my Bungle of Joy under preschool age, my happy dance isn’t dictated by the school year and its (deceptively named) vacations. My happy dance is dictated by how much granny nanny and day care time we are able and willing to cobble together. Which, as my writing responsibilities grow, turns out to be more and more. A fact that both thrills me and gives me pause. Because one thing I can say honestly and unequivocally, though perhaps a bit embarrassedly, is that I really do perform a mental happy dance nearly every time I pass the Bungle of Joy on to her village of caregivers.

Now, the old me would have flogged myself with a rubber chicken for this fact, knowing, with each lash of the hen, that I was being both ridiculous and, somehow, chastened. But the new me thinks, Why spoil a good thing? and, anyway, Hitting oneself with a rubber chicken is a little weird. Because the honest truth (as opposed to the other kind) is that dropping the BoJ off is akin to someone lifting a window to a sunny breeze in my brain. Which is to say it feels light and refreshing and good. And I think there are a couple reasons for this:

1) Taking care of children is W O R K.

Remember? That’s why, when we parents are not around, we actually PAY people to take care of our children. (OK, except for the granny nannies, but, hey Mom and Mom-in-Law, we REALLY DO appreciate it.) I imagine that, when the day care worker waves goodbye to the last child, s/he heaves a sigh of relief, just like anyone does after a long day at the office. Why should I be surprised that I feel the same way on the other end–even though it’s not the 5 o’clock whistle but the 8 am one?

So imagine if you work hard all day long and said whistle blows, and then you just keep working. Certainly, lots of folks do that by staying late at the office. But–and here’s the “but” I think we often don’t realize–almost all fulltime parents do that every single day just by staying at their office, the home. I think this is important to remember because it makes absolute sense to everyone that people who work should get some time to unwind, time to put their feet up, drink a beer, read the paper–or just drive in the car without another (small) human being in it fergoodnessake. (I experienced the latter firsthand a couple weekends ago when I went out shopping ALONE. Not even the dog in the car. It was rapturous, I tell you. And rare.) Yet we so easily forget that fulltime parents need that time off, too–and not just with the other parent home, helping. That’d be like expecting a business executive to enjoy a vacation at the ocean where he has to take conference calls every hour for the whole trip. (Oh wait, that sounds a bit too familiar.)

My last little thought about the WORK of taking care of children is this: If we know rationally that it IS work, if we can see how just a few hours of it can take the piss out of us…then how is it that some stay-at-home parents have this ludicrous idea that they *should* be able to “get some work done” (read: make conference calls, reply to clients’ emails, manage online projects–really do their normal job) while they’re at home parenting? (OK, that’s a friendly jab in the ribs to my girlfriend who is trying to bring home the bacon while also spending six hours a day with her child. If I were trying to do this, she would call me CRAZY. But rarely do we take our own best advice, right?)

OK, this post has gone a bit sideways and meandering, but I do have a second point and I hope it’s worth the wait. Here it is: The other reason why I think I’m a better parent when I don’t spend all my time doing it is this:

2) What I do spend my time doing when I’m not with my Bungle of Joy makes me feel happy, productive, intellectually stimulated, energized, passionate, and fulfilled. And all of those things make me a better parent.

For me, that other thing I do is a Job. And that job is Writing. And it makes me feel like a Real Live Adult, like I was before I became a mom. I’m happy to add Mom to my repertoire of tunes (among them wife, daughter, girlfriend, teacher, writer, sailor), but I’m not willing to be a one-string fiddle. I’m not willing to let Motherhood take over my identity.

As one of my girlfriends puts it, she loves her kids and loves being a mom, but she doesn’t like the Job of Motherhood. And I think she’s drawing a fair distinction. Because, even though it’s a labor of love, taking care of children is (as has already been established) W O R K. And, at least for me, when I took parenting on as my fulltime work (a stint that only lasted about seven or eight months thank goodness), I didn’t get the same feeling of happiness, productivity, intellectual stimulation (etc. etc.) that my job of writing gives me.

Now, I do think there are plenty of people who DO find happiness (etc.) from parenting as a fulltime job. But even those folks (as evidenced by Jenny at Adventures in Parenting) need a break from it sometimes.

I think the point is that figuring out a work/family balance tailor-made to each of us (and each of our families) is vitally important to the health of our children, our spouses, and our selves. Because, as the dreadfully charming Mr. Right says, when one person in the home isn’t happy, everyone in the home isn’t happy.

Speaking of happy, the other secret happy dance I do everyday, the one that’s even bigger and better than the one I do when I drop off the Bungle of Joy at day care, is the jig I do when I pick her up. That’s when I bundle her in my arms, squeeze her to bits, and breathe a sigh of relief that my writing work is over…and my parenting work has just begun.

Happily even after,janna
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